The Ship of Theseus
by fairytale ideals
Summary: It was bound to happen eventually, and the fact that Blaine had gone almost eight years without running into one Kurt Hummel was actually… Part of him wanted to call it a miracle, but another, bigger part of him wanted so very much to wander up and down the streets yelling out Kurt's name, just in case.


**Hi there! I don't really have much of anything to say before this, except for the fact that while this IS a break-up related fic, it is NOT at all related to 4x04. In this, they broke up in the summer after Kurt graduated.**

* * *

It was bound to happen eventually, and the fact that Blaine had gone almost eight years without running into one Kurt Hummel was actually… Part of him wanted to call it a miracle, but another, bigger part of him wanted so very much to wander up and down the streets yelling out Kurt's name, just in case.

It wasn't that their breakup had been bad, and if he had called Kurt up it probably wouldn't have been weird (several years later, though, he was sure that it would be a lot more awkward). By now, he can't even really remember what reasons they had used to justify breaking up (it was probably about the distance, or it could have been that they were too busy, but maybe the weather that day had been bad) though he remembers replaying the conversation over and over in his head in the following weeks. You'd think he'd remember it, then, and yet.

The point was, though, they'd talked and been friendly a bit, even after the breakup. But when Kurt had left for New York, it was just a lot easier to _not_.

When Blaine had first come to New York after graduating, he wandered the streets and went to all the coffee shops he could find, just hoping that he might run into him. He had known it was silly; it was a huge city—he looked it up once, literally _millions_ of people lived in New York City—and the chances of running into _anyone_ twice by coincidence were slim enough, much less someone specific that, at that point, he hadn't seen or even spoken to in about a year.

Eventually he gave it up, slipping into a comfortable routine, comprised mostly of his classes, work, and spending time with his friends. If he ran into Kurt, then he ran into Kurt. If he didn't, well, maybe they weren't destined to be together after all.

Today, though, today was the day, apparently. Seven years, eight months, twelve days, and countless cups of coffee and nights of singing under streetlights with small crowds that never included Kurt later, their paths finally crossed again.

At first, he wasn't sure that it really was Kurt. He had gotten used to the feeling of his heartbeat picking up hopefully when he saw a head of brown hair or a well-dressed body with perfect posture, then hurtling back into reality when the man would turn and it was, inevitably, not Kurt. So at first, when he saw a couple of girls pushing a guy that looked a bit like Kurt up onto the stage at karaoke night, Blaine figured that it wasn't actually him. What were the chances of Kurt and his friends showing up at the same bar that Blaine and _his_ friends always went to for karaoke?

With that in mind, he turned away during the opening notes of the song, deciding instead to listen to his friend Bennett excitedly chattering about how he'd found an honest-to-God typewriter at that antiques shop downtown. But then as soon the man on stage sang the first line of the song, the voice so achingly, unmistakably familiar, his head whipped around so quick he's surprised there wasn't an audible _whish, _even in the loud bar.

Sure enough, there was Kurt, standing there and singing some song that Blaine didn't recognize. Kurt was putting so much feeling into the song, the way that he always managed to. Blaine took in a deep breath, remembering all the times back in high school that Kurt had sung to _him_.

"He looks familiar," Bennett commented.

Blaine tore his eyes away from Kurt and looked back at Bennett. "Oh?" he asked, though he knew that Bennett had seen the pictures that Blaine had on display in his apartment, some of which featured Kurt (but he wasn't hung up on Kurt or anything, he swears; it's just that he liked having his high school memories around, and Kurt just so happened to be a big part of his years in high school).

"Yeah," Bennett said, stroking his nonexistent beard. "I swear I've seen him somewhere."

_Definitely not on my apartment walls_. "Well, he could be anybody," he said, shrugging.

"Yeah," Bennett said. "Maybe I should talk to him after he finishes. Maybe he knows why he's familiar."

"No," Blaine interjected, maybe a bit too quickly to be subtle. Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, he added as casually as he could manage, "He's here with his friends; you don't want to bother him. And you really do need to stop doing that thing where you do things, completely well-meaningly, but then you end up creeping people out."

"It's not my fault they get creeped out so easily!" Bennett said, frowning as he took another sip of his beer. "I am a genuinely nice person."

"I know you are," Blaine agreed, turning back to look at Kurt. They watched without comment as Kurt finished the song.

Around the bar people clapped as Kurt bowed quickly and bounced slightly as he said a bright, "Thank you!" Blaine watched as he blew kisses to the crowd as he stepped—strutted, really— off of the stage (or, more accurately, the corner that was better lit than the rest of the room but was only about a foot or so higher than the rest of the floor) and made his way back to his group of friends, and he couldn't help but wonder if Kurt was a bit drunk or maybe he was just more confident and happy then he used to be.

He was so caught up in watching Kurt wend his way back across the room to sit back down with his friends (God, was that _Rachel_? He was oddly touched at the thought that Kurt and Rachel were still good friends) that he didn't notice someone approaching him.

"Blainers! Benny!" He looked over to find another one of their friends, Macy, grabbing both of their elbows and grinning at them. "It's karaoke night and neither of you have gone up there!"

Bennett nodded. "I volunteer Blaine, because he didn't sing _last_ week, either," he said.

Going up on the stage and attracting the attention of the room was definitely the last thing that Blaine wanted in that moment. If he performed, no doubt Kurt would notice him and that wouldn't give him enough time to go about planning how to approach Kurt (he couldn't _not_, could he?).

Thinking on his feet, he said quickly, "I don't know, Bennett, my throat's kind of sore," he said. He saw Bennett and Macy both starting to try to form protests, but he quickly added, "And weren't you two just talking yesterday about how you guys wanted to sing Barton Hollow together?"

Macy lit up at that, grabbing Bennett by the hand and practically pulling him off of his barstool. "We were! God, I nearly forgot! Thank you, Blaine!"

He laughed as they crossed the room and waited for the current singers, a pair of ridiculously drunk coeds warbling their way through Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, to finish before they went up.

He couldn't help but laugh a bit at them as they performed, getting way to into it the way slightly drunk people were wont to do. He also couldn't help a glance over at Kurt's table. Kurt was watching them with an amused look on his face, then leaned over and said something in Rachel's (and yes, once he looked at her better, he was certain that it was her) ear, making her laugh.

Once Blaine looked at Kurt's table, he couldn't bring himself to look away. The bench around the circular booth was full to the point that everyone at the table was squished together and Kurt had Rachel and the girl on his other side practically on top of him, but no one at the table seemed uncomfortable. At Rachel's laugh, the rest of the table turned to look at her, and she gestured at Kurt as she explained.

Watching Kurt interacting with his friends, Blaine couldn't help but realize something: he looked _happy_. He looked perfectly content and comfortable. He was perfectly relaxed and casual and just sort of touching his friends' hands in such a comfortable way and God, 1) why did Blaine even notice that and 2) did that even make _sense_?

Sure, Kurt might have been a bit drunk, but there wasn't really anything inherently _sad_ about drinking; in fact, drinking while you were out with your friends was the norm. So outwardly, at the very least, Kurt was _happy_. (And hadn't Blaine been the one who had always been able to tell when Kurt was only pretending to be happy in the past?)

And running into your ex while you're having a fun night out with friends could easily turn a good night into a bad night, even if the conversation with said ex was completely friendly and amicable. Seeing exes leads to having memories of exes and from there it was a slippery slope, and fuck if Blaine wanted to run the risk of ruining Kurt's night.

So Blaine stayed in his seat and turned back to watch Bennett and Macy finish the song. When they finished, they came back to the bar, sitting down and flanking him on either side. They carried on with loud conversation about the other members of their group of friends who usually came to karaoke night with them, and if they noticed that he was more quiet than usual, they didn't say anything about it. That was the good thing about drunk friends, though, he figured, that they were great at not noticing things (just like how a magician's best friend was a drunk audience).

Eventually Bennett got him to drink enough—Bennett was a _horrible_ influence—that he was feeling more okay with his decision to let this opportunity to actually talk to Kurt (after a long, long seven years, eight months, and twelve days of radio silence between the two of them) slip through his fingers, and he was more willing to just take a step back and enjoy his own evening.

So he was decently buzzed by the time Macy leaned over and said into his ear, "Hey, sunshine, you have an admirer."

He smiled at that and almost looked where she was looking before Bennett clicked his tongue. "That is the guy from earlier," he said. "We probably _do_ know him from somewhere!"

Blaine wanted to snap at them to stop looking at Kurt and he wanted to run from the room but Kurt had _seen_ him and hadn't he once told him that you shouldn't run? And besides, now the ball is in Kurt's court. They both know the other is there, and Blaine hopes the Kurt realizes that if he doesn't make the first move, then Blaine won't either.

"You should go over there and talk to him," Macy continued.

"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "That would be weird."

"Wait, no. That's pretty much what bars are for, all whimsical duets aside," Bennett said, grinning up at the bar lights, "It's for making a fool out of yourself all in the name of sex and potential love."

"And besides, Blaine, he is super hot," Macy said, and he wished that he had a way to make her stop unabashedly staring at Kurt. "I'd go for him if he wasn't so obviously into you."

He nodded slowly, hoping that she would take the hint and drop the subject. Instead, she opened her mouth to speak again. "Honey, as far as I know, it's been a while since you—"

"He's my ex," Blaine said. "We dated in high school, we were… we were so goddamn in love and we were _that_ couple and at night we would lay in bed and talk about getting married one day and then all of a sudden we just _weren't_." He paused, taking in the surprised look on his friends' faces. "So yeah, forgive me if I don't really feel like going over there and trying to hit on him."

Macy's face dropped at that and she frowned in the way that people only did when they were pitying someone. She made a small sympathetic noise and opened her mouth to say something, but Blaine cut her off before she could say anything.

"Don't, really, just don't," he said. Frowning down at his now-warm beer, he added, "Like I said, it was in high school. Meaning it was years ago and I'm over it, aside from the fact that if anything he's only gotten more heartbreakingly beautiful since I last saw him."

Bennett cleared his throat loudly. "Don't look now, but Mr. Heartbreakingly Beautiful is coming over here. So if you want to fake passing out, you're a really small guy and I could totally catch you."

For a second, Blaine was sure that Bennett was lying to rattle him or something (or at least he, even for a millisecond, convinced himself that that was something his friend would do) but a quick glance back at where Kurt used to sit showed him an empty spot at the table. He accidentally made eye contact with Rachel (why did she even have to stare so hard?) and quickly looked away, only to find that Kurt was right in front of him.

"Hi," he said, for lack of anything better to say.

Kurt smiled at him, looking genuinely pleased to see him, and Blaine couldn't help but pick up his enthusiasm. "Rachel was right," he said, "It _is_ you!"

Blaine nodded, grinning back at Kurt. "It is indeed!" he said, "And you're you!"

Kurt laughed, reaching his hand out and then drawing it back as if reconsidering the action. "Hey, can I um… would you mind stepping outside with me? It's really loud in here."

He hesitated to answer, not because he didn't want to talk to Kurt (oh lord, he did) but because some part of him was scared that they would be just too different from who they used to be. God, what if their conversation just turned into posturing on both ends, pretending they were the same as the boys they'd been before.

But Macy was started to lean, her elbow propped up on the bar and pushing him, and he stood up, realizing how stupid he was being. This was _Kurt_. Once upon a time they had whispered against each other's lips that they were the loves of each other's lives, and until now he'd been, albeit reluctantly, willing to let Kurt disappear into the ether (as far as Blaine's knowledge of him was concerned, at least). But here Kurt was, right in front of him, and some part of him liked to believe in fate. "Sure," he said.

Kurt's eyes lit up at that, but he quickly schooled his features to look less excited. "Great," he said, turning to walk out and glancing back askance to make sure Blaine was following.

As they stepped out into the February air, Blaine let out a shiver but couldn't be too bothered with the cold since he was filled with a pleasant warmth because _Kurt_.

"So, just, um, how have you been?" Kurt asked, rocking on his feet.

"I've been good," Blaine answered, leaning back against the brick exterior of the bar. He made a noise that was supposed to become more words, but he found that he didn't have anything to say. That was not to say that he didn't have things to say to Kurt (oh, lord, he did, including "I missed you" and "You're even more beautiful than I remember" and "I still love you"), but that he realized that this was where he was supposed to talk about what he had been up to since they last saw each other. Almost eight years, and yet nothing that was worth mentioning.

Instead, he just looked back up at Kurt and said, "How about you? I see that you and Rachel are still friends."

Kurt nodded. "Oh, yeah. Never was quite able to shake her, you know how it is," he said teasingly, leaning over to nudge Blaine with his elbow.

As soon as Blaine noticed Kurt's elbow coming towards him, he was filled with an odd sort of panic and, without thinking, sidestepped to avoid it. The second he realized what it was he had just done, though, he was embarrassed and hoped that, despite the fact that it was an awkward move (he _was_ leaned up against a wall, after all), Kurt didn't notice or think anything of it.

If Kurt _did _think it was strange, he didn't say anything about it. He just blinked a few times down at the empty space between them, looking for a second like he wanted to ask just what the hell that was all about, but instead just looked up at Blaine and asked, "So, are you seeing anybody nowadays?"

Blaine almost literally laughed out loud. The question, really, shouldn't have been as funny as it was; it _had_ been almost eight years and he _was_ twenty-six now, so he really ought to be out there and dating. "No," he said after a moment. "Not really." He looked up at the night sky and tried to find constellations (not that he had much luck seeing _any _stars for the city lights) to keep himself from saying something about how his longest relationship since they'd broken up was only a few months because he couldn't stop himself from comparing people to Kurt and that wasn't fair to anyone. Instead he'd mostly just had a few short-term flings that he immediately felt bad about after. "I, um, haven't, really."

Kurt let out the sort of laugh at that that you would laugh when you were relieved and maybe what was going on was something you should laugh at but you do anyways. "That makes me feel better about confessing that I haven't either."

He couldn't help but laugh back. "You ruined me, I think," he said.

Kurt looked over at him and gave him a look that he supposed could almost look like Kurt was trying to maybe look a bit remorseful. "I'm sorry," he said, but there was just a bit of a smile on his lips.

"Don't be," Blaine said. Before he could think about what he was saying, he said, "It was a pleasure to be ruined by you."

The statement hung in the air for a moment before Kurt took a deep breath in (and Blaine had to stop himself from getting carried away with the metaphorical resonance of that thought) and looked like he was going to say something until he shut his mouth and just looked at Blaine.

And, just the way they always did, Kurt's eyes drew Blaine's in, like the opposite poles of magnets.

Kurt's eyes were just as magical as they were the last time Blaine saw them (this time perhaps a bit more magical, since they were full of excitement at seeing Blaine again instead of tears at potentially not seeing Blaine again, though Kurt _was _one of those people who looked stupidly beautiful when they cried), of course they were. The street lights lit them up enough that he could almost make out the different colors in them, and not for the first time in his life, thought crossed Blaine's mind that he'd like to just swim in Kurt's eyes.

At the same time, though, there was something _different _about Kurt's eyes. He wasn't sure whether it was something real—maybe the years had physically changed Kurt's eyes (was that possible? Could they really look noticeably different?) or he might have had shields up he didn't used to—or something that he was imagining—Kurt _did_ look slightly different over all, when it came right down to it, so why not his eyes, too?

He didn't have too much longer to think about it before Kurt whispered, his breath visible in the winter air, "I don't think I was ever really done with you," and those confusing eyes were closing. Just like that, Kurt was leaning in, and it would have just been so easy for Blaine to close his own eyes and let it happen, let himself fall back into the comfort of Kurt…

If it weren't for the fact that he was _sure_ Kurt's eyes were different, and that inexplicable panicked feeling was back again.

Once again without his permission, Blaine stepped backwards and watched, as if in slow motion, as Kurt came to the realization that he was not as close as he was supposed to be. When Kurt's eyes opened again and found Blaine's, there was an unmistakable hurt in them.

"Kurt…"

"No, Blaine, it's fine," Kurt said, starting to turn away. "You don't… you don't have to explain."

"I—please don't walk away again Kurt, I swear, please just…" he trailed off as he watched Kurt walking back towards the door, at a loss for what exactly it was that he was trying to say. All he knew for sure was that he didn't want to upset Kurt, _god_, he hated it when Kurt was upset.

"I said it's fine, Blaine," Kurt said, looking over his shoulder just long enough to give him a painfully fake smile.

"I still love you," Blaine said quietly, and he wasn't sure whether Kurt heard him or not. Either way, the other man walked back into the bar, and after taking a few minutes to compose himself, Blaine went home; he needed an amount of alcohol in his body that he was unwilling to pay bar prices for.

* * *

By the time Blaine walked into his apartment, he came to the decision that drinking excessively wasn't going to help anything. With that in mind, he meant to just collapse into bed and mope (which, really, wouldn't help anything, either, but at least he wouldn't wake up with a hangover, anyways). You only got a limited number of chances with people like Kurt, and he'd just ruined his (what were the chances he'd ever run into Kurt again and, at that, that Kurt would be willing to take him back at that point?).

As he walked down his hall, a picture hanging there caught his attention. Smiling back at him from inside the frame were eighteen-year old Blaine and Kurt, sometime in the spring before they broke up. His arm was around Kurt's waist, and there wasn't much of anything more about it to suggest anything about their relationship, but he had the feeling that anyone looking at it would be able to tell that they were together (this theory was supported by the remarkable number of men he brought back to his apartment nervously asking, "is that your boyfriend?"). It was one of those things that he probably should have taken down—it certainly wasn't helping him find someone new, after all—but the point still stood that memories were memories and there was no real harm in one-odd picture of Kurt in his apartment.

Usually, he was fine seeing the picture. Sometimes he would even see it and smile to himself.

Tonight, though, after seeing Kurt in the flesh, it just made him want to cry.

Grabbing the picture from the wall, he walked into the kitchen and set it on the counter. "I am being responsible," he said, "and not drinking, or calling you, or any combination of the above." He was some measure of proud of himself in that regard: he had never drunkenly dialed Kurt's number. He had thought he had, once, but he had accidentally hit the next number down and that nice girl named Laura from a couple of his classes had called him sweet and called him a cab.

"Instead," he said, "I am going to sit here and maybe drink some water or something, and tell you all the things I wish I was able to actually tell you."

For a minute or two Blaine paced around the kitchen in silence, trying to figure out exactly how to say what he was trying to say, as if his wording would make any difference. Finally, he grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water.

Perching on top of a stool at the breakfast counter, he frowned down at the picture in front of him.

"The thing is, Kurt, the human body is constantly replacing cells, right?" he said and took a sip of water. "And forgive me if I don't explain this well or if I get it wrong—science is confusing and it seems like you're always just a little bit wrong when you talk about science anyways."

He leaned forward then, tilting his head side to side as he tried to arrange his thoughts. "So basically, every so often, we're in practically completely new bodies! I mean, it happens cell by cell so we don't really notice, I mean cells are constantly dying and being replaced, but our bodies aren't the same as they were before.

"When I found that out, I decided to look into it. And the Internet couldn't really give me an answer as to how long that process takes; a few people said months, some a few years, maybe seven years," he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "Regardless, it's been about eight years—yeah, I've been counting and I could tell you down to the month and maybe week—and so chances are, our bodies are completely different than they were when we last touched."

He waited a long moment before continuing, "It's an excuse, I know it, and sure, I've never been much for science, but trust me when I say that what happened tonight is not because I don't still love you. It's because I was scared.

"I was scared because once upon a time, I feel like we knew each other, down to the tiniest little cell. We knew each other so well that when we kissed, each cell breathed a little sigh of relief. When we ran our hands over each other, dead skin cells flew off, the way they always do, but they were at peace with it because our cells went _together_."

He paused, swishing around the water in his glass as if it were a fine wine. "I'm sure I'm not drunk enough for things like that to be coming out of my mouth," he offered, but added nonetheless, "Oh, but when our new cells met, all the other cells would get all excited and I swear I could hear my cells whispering to the new cells, 'This is Kurt, oh, you'll just love him!' And they always did."

Blaine sighed, leaning back in his seat. "I loved you with every cell in my body, and you loved me with all of yours, and… it's been long enough that our bodies have got to be mostly, if not completely—really, I don't understand science, Kurt, remember when you used to help me with my chemistry?—different and I realized that and I panicked. The lips that were about to kiss mine weren't the same lips I used to know and I guess my lips weren't the same that you used to know, either. And, I guess… I was scared that if we touched, I might feel it. I might feel our cells shiver with unfamiliarity, where every time we touched before it just felt like I was coming home."

He stood up, wandering around the room and looking decidedly anywhere but the picture as if that would make any difference in the end. "And so I got to wondering if _we_ are different people. I mean, I'm not friends with the same people I used to be and we've both been so far from where we were and a place like this changes people, college changes people and god knows being apart changes people."

"And I sat there and I saw you with your friends and you looked so happy and I'm not sure if I ever really saw you that much at peace in public and so I guess the thing is, I knew you were different. And I was scared to touch that, too, because when people are around people they used to know they sometimes try to be who they used to be, even without realizing it. And you looked so happy and I didn't want to do that to you."

Blaine pulled himself up onto the counter, crossing his legs. "But the thing is, the more I think about it, the more I realize that all of that is, pardon my French, complete _bullshit_. Because the thing is, no matter if our bodies are different or not, we're still us. You still smiled that smile that always made me predisposed to agreeing with every word you say, and my heart still beat faster when I saw you so maybe my cells do still remember you and maybe we are in just two completely different bodies, just cellular doppelgangers, that coincidentally remember each other but you know what?

"That is _fine_."

He let out a loud laugh. "It's completely fine. It's amazing, really. Because if there is one thing in this world that I could point to as being absolutely, incredibly perfect, it was the time in my life where I was falling in love with you and all your cells the first go round, and I'm sure that this time could be just as magical. You deserve that, and I swear, oh I swear, I'm going to try to fix what we broke."

He grinned down at the picture, seeing Kurt grinning back up at him. He had a tendency to overthink things, but maybe he'd managed to think himself right back where he needed to be.

Blaine practically flung himself off of the counter and walked back to where he had plugged in his phone. He scrolled through his contents, silently praying that Kurt hadn't changed his number over the years.

It rang for so long that Blaine was about to give up hope, sure that either Kurt was ignoring him or maybe it was a wrong number or who knows what other crazy ideas he was coming up with, but then suddenly he heard that voice on the other end of the line.

"_Blaine?_"

"Kurt, hi! I, ah, can I try this again?"

* * *

**I always seem to get people adding alerts to oneshots, and with an ending like this, I'm sure a lot more people would think it's not finished. But I'm just letting you know it IS, unless people really want a follow-up or something. So yeah, no need to add an alert. :)**


End file.
